La frontière romaine de l’Africa sous le Haut-Empire
What is a Roman border, how is it constructed? What limits does the Roman power conceive for the territorial extent of its power and its provinces? These are the questions posed by this book through the study of one of the most extensive and still badly known frontiers of the Roman Empire. This work concerns the border of Africa proconsularis, which is the longest limit of Rome south of the Mediterranean Sea. This book examines its crucial and still discussed phase of genesis between the e...
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Editor's note
Ouvrage publié avec le concours de l’université de Limoges – Laboratoire CRIHAM, Programme Hubert Curien Maghreb « Désert » (PHC Maghreb 16/MAG18).
PRIX SERGE LANCEL 2020 de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
- Publisher : Casa de Velázquez
- Series : Bibliothèque de la Casa de Velázquez | 74
- Place of publication : Madrid
- Year of publication : 2018
- Published on OpenEdition Books : 26 novembre 2018
- EAN (Print version) : 978-84-9096-204-6
- Electronic EAN : 978-84-9096-205-3
- DOI : 10.4000/books.cvz.6537
- Number of pages : XVI-390 p.
Introduction
« Imperium sine fine… » ?Première partie. La genèse de la frontière d’Afrique proconsulaire
Préambule de la première partie
La genèse de la frontière d’Afrique proconsulaireChapitre premier
Une « frontière virtuelle » ?Deuxième partie. La nature des limites méridionales de l’Africa
Préambule à la deuxième partie
La nature des limites méridionales de l’AfricaTroisième partie. Un territoire de la frontière ?
Préambule de la troisième partie
Un territoire de la frontière ?Chapitre VIII
Un territoire d’échangesChapitre IX
L’émergence d’une société de la frontière ?Sources et bibliographie
Toponymes anciens et modernes, hydronymes et ethniques
What is a Roman border, how is it constructed? What limits does the Roman power conceive for the territorial extent of its power and its provinces? These are the questions posed by this book through the study of one of the most extensive and still badly known frontiers of the Roman Empire. This work concerns the border of Africa proconsularis, which is the longest limit of Rome south of the Mediterranean Sea. This book examines its crucial and still discussed phase of genesis between the end of the Roman Republic and the ultimate stage of expansion of the military occupation in the south of Africa under the Severan dynasty. This synthesis shows, like other regional studies, that the Roman border has political and territorial implications across the province, and that it was not based on a strategic policy at the scale of the Empire, which was not part of the plans of Rome to establish its borders locally.
This book also invites to revise the idea still often conveyed that the Roman border was elaborated in Africa in relation to, or against, an over-estimated nomadic presence, resulting in regularly making border a traced line or a space defined by the military presence, in an objective of control, between the Roman territory and the neighboring tribes deemed hostile. The notion of border in the context of Roman Africa was indeed strongly influenced by the military function allotted to a large number of remains discovered in the southern part of the provincial territory. The reasons justifying the presence of the Roman army in the region remain, however, discussed. The very central question that arises is then that of the nomadism, since it is around the presumed existence of nomadic or semi-nomadic practices that are regularly perceived the relations between Rome and the local African populations in the south of Roman Africa.
This study shows that the provincial limit, gradually equipped with military structures, did not constitute under the High Empire an institutionalized military border that would have taken the shape of military or administrative districts. Such was not the ambition of Rome, whose intervention in the south of Africa did not respond to a concern for the complete pacification of the territory. This report, not specific to the African context, also explains the pragmatism of Rome in the choices concerning the establishment of garrisons on the provincial border, which did not themselves participate in a thoughtful policy of systematic military occupation of the area. The examination of the whole documentation, written and archaeological, also results in revising the idea of an effective and regular control at the border of Africa proconsularis. It leads moreover to take an original approach to the nature of the settlement in the region, and to measure the daily significance of the provincial border for the populations that were established at its contact.
These different aspects are considered through three successive parts, which constitute the frame of the work. The reflection is initiated by the study of the circumstances that contributed to the formation of the African border, between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principat. The investigation aims to understand the nature of the relations between the Roman State and the local populations, in the process of appropriation of the African territory, progressively submitted to Rome. This essential precondition makes it possible to consider in a second time the political measures and the military structures gradually organizing the provincial border under the High Empire. Through the critical examination of these various manifestations of the Roman authority, the challenge is to better understand the management, by Rome, of the confines of its Empire. The territorial dynamics, to which the spatial dimension recognized at the African borders grants an essential place, are finally studied in a third part. This one considers the incidences of the border for the populations established in contact with it, both in terms of economic exchanges and internal evolutions in the organization of these societies. All the territorial dynamics observed in the south of the African province under the High Empire invite then to think about the emergence of a territory of the border from this period.
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